GitStart

Last night, we hosted a group of senior engineering leaders at Oracle Park for a night full of great food, drinks, and exciting networking. We look forward to hosting more of these and are excited about some of our rapidly approaching upcoming events. 👇 The GitStart team will be on the ground at both ELC in #SanFrancisco and LeadDev in NYC and will host a few smaller, intimate events for folks in our network and clients. We've also got a few discounted passes remaining, so reach out if you'd like to join us on the ground and meet IRL! We'd be more than happy to host you. 🤝

We led GitStart’s latest round because we believe in their potential to reshape how development teams work. Originally developed by CEO Hamza Z. to tackle challenges he faced as an engineer, GitStart quickly gained the attention of his then-boss, Fred Stevens-Smith, who became one of the company’s first investors. By combining AI with human expertise, GitStart transforms routine tickets into ready-to-merge pull requests, freeing dev teams to focus on high-impact projects. ✨ Why we’re excited about GitStart: 🔹 Solving a Core Issue: GitStart removes critical bottlenecks by automating repetitive work, letting teams focus on high-value tasks. Teams can now buy outcomes, not just interfaces, reshaping software delivery. 🔹 A Strategic Market Fit: With demand for efficient dev solutions rising, GitStart is perfectly positioned to set a new standard in agile, productive development. 🔹 From Engineer to Founder: Hamza Zia, a former engineer at Rainforest QA, first built this solution to streamline his own work. Recognizing its potential, Rainforest CEO Fred Stevens-Smith became one of GitStart’s earliest backers, encouraging Hamza to turn it into a full-fledged company. Today, Hamza’s deep expertise fuels GitStart’s commitment to practical, results-driven automation. 🔹 Real Results for Clients: GitStart’s customers already see significant savings and faster results. One CEO noted, “every ticket GitStart handles costs one-sixth of what it does in-house—and it’s done faster.” Beyond saving costs, GitStart lets companies optimize their teams for higher productivity. Learn more about why Jim Andelman invested in GitStart here - https://bit.ly/4fK1hpm

GitStart has shipped over a billion lines of code to production by managing LLMs and Distributed Engineers, with an average of less than 1.7 code review cycles. We are now really excited to share that we have raised additional funding, led by Bonfire Ventures 🔥, who were joined by new angels like Hadi Partovi (CEO @ Code.org), Jack Krawczyk, Karthik Ramakrishnan, along with our existing backers including Neo, Future Africa and YC. Read more on our journey here and get a glimpse of where we're headed next:

🗽 It's been an incredible week for the GitStart team in NYC. We're in town for LeadDev and LeadingEng, and the excitement hasn't stopped. We've really enjoyed meeting with some of you on the ground, but we're not finished... Join us at the main stage for an insightful presentation led by Maria Zhang on Budgeting: Your (Unexpected) Opportunity To Be a Hero. Happening in 10 minutes on the main stage. Come find us right after and say hello! We'd love to meet you. #LeadDev #LeadingEng #startups #softwaredevelopment

Pull requests x pretzels anyone? After wrapping up at ELC, we hosted an awesome group of engineering leaders at RadHaus for a German-themed dinner. We got to connect and mingle with some of the brilliant minds who are changing the way we think about software development. A special thanks to everyone who attended the event. It's always a pleasure to spend a bit of time face-to-face around novel ideas. Until next year. 🚀

Asylum seekers and refugees trained as software developers continue to struggle to find opportunities to break into the job market and advance their careers, despite their skills and qualifications. To create equal opportunities for asylum seekers and refugees living in Israel, we must address the barriers they face, such as language difficulties, unrecognized foreign credentials, limited professional networks, and hiring biases. At the African Refugee Development Center (ARDC), we are actively working to overcome these challenges and support refugees in securing meaningful employment in the tech industry. To further our mission of advancing economic mobility and inclusion for refugees, I am excited to announce our new partnership with GitStart. Together, we’ve launched Coding4Hope, a new social impact program designed to empower refugees in Israel by providing them with the skills, experience, and opportunities needed to succeed in the tech industry. Through Coding4Hope, GitStart integrates refugee developers who graduated from ARDC programs into dedicated teams, where they work on real-world projects for local tech companies, ensuring continuous learning and delivering high-quality results that meet industry standards. By doing so, we not only support their personal growth but also enrich our local tech ecosystem with highly motivated and skilled developers. Let's collaborate to create meaningful opportunities for refugee developers and strengthen the tech community in Israel. Message me to learn more about #Coding4Hope and how you can be part of this impactful initiative.

Watching the ships roll in... 👀 We're live on the ground for ELC 2024 near Pier 2 and off to a strong start. We started the morning with some bug chat with a strong session led by Christian Wiklund over at unitQ before heading over to a fireside chat hosted by Marcel Weekes on the value of collaboration related to team productivity. Pretty incredible morning and we're just getting started. Are you enjoying the event so far? We'd love to see you. Drop by our booth located on the first row just past the Figma coffee bar. (use codename polish socks) ;) #startups #engineering #SanFrancisco #ELC2024

📢 Ticket writing just got easier with AI. 🚨 No more missing requirements, errors in scope, and endless back-and-forth. Why do it yourself when our AI can create well-scoped tickets within minutes using codebase context and gathering requirements via chat? Don't just take our word for it. Learn more 👇

As Day 1 at Plato Elevate comes to a close, we're excited to look back at some of the day's best highlights. We started with an informative session led by Maria Zhang on increasing engineering elasticity to maximize velocity on your most impactful projects, but the fun didn't stop there. We enjoyed learning more about how others are exploring similar pathways with a strong workshop from Navneet Rao of Thumbtack on their push to accelerate experimentation velocity. Vivek Ravisankar of HackerRank shared a bit about the way generative AI is changing the way we hire developers, which was in line with what we'd heard from others. Suddenly, a trend began to emerge. We took a quick lunch break and got right back to the action with a powerful session led by Madhav Nair, CTO of Employ, on the importance of instilling confidence in junior devs by giving them a seat at the table regarding decision-making early in their careers. We popped in for Thenewclub's fireside chat before heading over to hear J. Stefan Crespo-Donaire, MBA, PSM I's chat on the art of scalable billing. We finished Day 1 off with a strong keynote from David Singleton of Stripe on the future of developer experience. It was an awesome day, and we can't wait for what's in store for Day 2. Come see us on the 4th floor - we'd love to connect! #sanfrancisco #plato #elevate